Tiki Barber spent his entire career with the New York Giants, and got to be close with everyone up and down the chain of command – especially Wellington Mara, who took over the Giants from his father and owned the team for 46 years before his passing in 2005.
News of Brian Flores’ lawsuit against the NFL and the Giants (among other teams) broke after Tiki & Tierney went off the air on Tuesday, so on Wednesday, an emotional Barber finally got a chance to tell the emotional story of his final goodbye to Wellington Mara:
“When Wellington Mara passed away in 2005, it was emotional. It hurt me. We knew it was going to happen, and before Wellington passed, Ronnie Barnes (the Giants’ head trainer) called me and told me the Maras wanted me to come up to Westchester and say goodbye,” Tiki said, getting emotional. “Why me, right? So I get to their house in Westchester, and Jeremy Shockey is leaving – Wellington loved Jeremy Shockey – and he tells me that the whole family is in there. I went to his bedside, he’s still alive at this point, and I just told him, ‘thank you for making me a Giant.’”
That all came because a caller named Dwayne in Piscataway called in to try to take Tiki to task for “minimizing” the entire Flores/Giants situation, and Barber had to explain his own stance.
“We’ve known the NFL has issues hiring coaches, but to say the league itself is systemically racist because minorities aren’t getting head coaching jobs and Brian Flores had a bad experience because of what Bill Belichick did?” Tiki said. “If Bill Belichick never sends that text, and Flores comes into that interview Thursday and he doesn’t end up getting the job, is he still suing the league? Think about what the catalyst was.”
When Dwayne went on to tell Barber “you know how this works” and told Tiki “you have a forum and know how hard it was to get someone that looks like you to work the shift you work,” Barber went off and explained why he doesn’t believe the Mara family would have any racial motivations:
“WFAN can’t hide from the fact that not many minorities have held these seats, but I’m also not willing to scream and yell that a Giants organization I revere is racist. You want me to turn my pulpit into a bully pulpit, but I don’t believe in alleging things I don’t believe are true. You might think that I’m not fulfilling what a black guy in a host seat should do, but I can’t speak something I don’t believe,” Barber said.
When BT jumped in to note that “the hardest thing to do is prove you’re not racist,” Tiki went on to explain why he doesn’t think The Maras are racist:
“They embraced me like I was family. I know them intimately. So when I say I don’t believe they’re racist, it’s because I know they’re not. Maybe they don’t have a black head coach, or a black general manager or coordinator. But I know they’re not a racist organization, and for Dwayne to try to boil me into saying something that’s not true, it’s frustrating, because you don’t know my truth and my interactions with this organization. To force me just because I have the seat to do so, it’s just wrong. And it’s frustrating, and it’s frustrating to me that the Giants are getting this rap.”
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That said, Tiki then explained his take on the situation, and on knowing that there is an issue in the league when it comes to minority hiring.
“They hired a GM who had an idea of who it wanted to be their head coach. Brian Flores is lighting a match to the Giants organization and the league, which needs to be explored – I’m not saying it doesn’t need to be explored – but the fact there is a Rooney Rule proves we know this is an issue,” he said. “The Rooney Rule is not perfect and never will be, because the pipeline for black candidates is not big enough. At the end of the day, you try to do the best you can, and I think the league and the Giants do that. Are they going to do it right all the time? No, but they’re going to try to do the best that they can.”
You can listen to the entire 12-minute exchange with Dwayne’s call and Tiki’s response above.
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